The present invention relates to baked products and methods for making such products. In particular, the invention relates to a folded pastry product and a method for making same.
Microwave ovens and conventional ovens have provided a convenient means for heating a variety of frozen food products. Within this category of frozen food products, frozen store-bought pizzas continue to be a popular microwave-heatable item for consumers. More recently, frozen pizza alternatives have been popular, such as pizza bread, frozen burritos and frozen strudels. These frozen products offer the convenience of being heatable in either a conventional oven or a microwave oven, while providing the convenience of individual serving sizes. Furthermore, the alternative shapes to the typically flat, round pizzas allow for a wider variety of toppings to accommodate for more consumer tastes.
Several pastry products and methods have been developed to provide these alternative products to the consumer. As mentioned above, among these products are pizza bread analogues in the form of an elongated bread product containing a tomato-based topping. In such a product, a yeast dough is partially baked and a topping is applied and cooked further along with the dough. In order to facilitate the addition of a topping, an incision may be made into the bread dough to provide a crevice for retaining additional pizza topping. An example of such a product is found in Chesner U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,184.
In another type of alternative product, a rolled pastry dough may be folded or rolled around a filling. Examples of such products are found in Wilson U.S. Pat. No. 3,143,424, Corbet U.S. Pat. No. 2,509,035, and Meilstrup U.S. Pat. No. 2,089,396.
While these products may be used to offer the consumer a wider variety of toppings and service sizes, they do not provide the user with a palatable and firm structure for handling the product while it is being consumed, especially when such a product is heated in a microwave oven. The exception is the pizza bread product, but the pizza bread is not always amenable to a wide variety of toppings, and microwave cooking tends to make the bread soggy.
In general, frozen food items of the thin-crusted variety tend to more generally favored if the crust has a crispy quality when cooked. These characteristics are easily accomplished in a conventional oven due to such an oven's direct surface heating and drying effects. In microwave ovens, however, excess moisture within the frozen crust often causes it to become soft and soggy. Excess liquid within the filling also causes this problem. After prolonged exposure, the crust becomes tough and unpalatable, with the crumb of the crust becoming rubbery and gummy. Reducing the amount of time the crust is exposed to microwave energy is usually not a possibility, because the toppings or filings must be heated to a proper serving temperature. By the time the toppings are adequately heated, the crust can already be unpalatable.
Various attempts have been made to overcome the problems associated with exposure of filled crusts to microwave energy. These improvements, however, have been only minimally successful. For example, dough formulas have been manipulated to make them homogeneously higher in shortening content and eggs. The inclusion of these additional ingredients slows the crust's absorption of microwave energy. These types of crusts do not have a pleasant taste or texture, nor are they amenable to use in products other than flat, topped frozen pizzas.
Other cures such as pre-cooking or pre-toasting have been attempted to reduce the amount of moisture in the bread product and thus alleviate the problems caused when the product is exposed to microwave energy. However, the pre-cooking can degrade the taste and instead create a dry, unappealing product. In the case of pizzas, the reduction of moisture in the pre-cooked crust becomes somewhat futile, because the low moisture is counteracted by the addition of the pizza toppings, such as tomato sauce, cheese, meats, and vegetables, all of which re-contribute moisture to the crust. This moisture problem would be especially significant if the crust was wrapped around a filling rather than being used as a base beneath it. Moreover, the pre-toasting adds an additional, expensive step to the entire manufacturing process.
Other methods for incorporating fat into crusts or pastry have been developed to improve the overall texture of the crust. One method includes incorporating flakes of shortening or fat into a homogenous dough. This crust is not specifically formulated for improved microwavability, however, and such a crust does not adequately possess the desirable texture of traditionally cooked thin-crusted pizzas or other pastry products.
Furthermore, some dough products for commercial foods such as pies and pastries are made using a laminated dough. A laminated dough typically comprises thin layers of dough separated by either a layer of fat or a layer of dough of a differing type. These laminated doughs have previously been used for puffed, highly risen pastries, which have little value if the consumer desires or a particular filling requires thin, rigid crusts or pastries. Crusts and pastries have also been made from a pressed laminated dough, although the advantages of using a multiple-layer dough tend to be lost during the steps of pressing or stamping the dough into discs. The pressing or stamping homogenizes much of the layered structure.